‘Let There Be Beer’ in the UK
To boost flagging beer sales in the UK, Heineken, SABMiller, Carlsberg, ABInBev and Molson Coors have joined forces to launch a campaign encouraging UK consumers to go back to enjoying beer.
Print4 July 2013
‘Let There Be Beer’, a 30-second commercial, was launched on TV there recently alongside related social media and celebrity tie-ups.
The British Beer & Pub Association, the Campaign for Real Ale and the Society of Independent Brewers have also lent their support to the campaign alongside off-licensees and publicans.
This collaboration is a first for the brewing industry and the campaign and is a rallying cry to the nation to remember just how good it is to have a beer, “… getting Brits rediscovering beer all over again and trying it on occasions which they might not have considered before”.
A ‘significant’ unidentified level of investment has been put behind the campaign by the five brewers. The campaign, spanning a number of years, will also place a major focus on pairing beer with food and celebrating the social side of beer-drinking.
Largely thanks to the broadening tastes of the beer-drinking public. 46% of UK consumers are now willing to try a new brand of lager. Two decades ago there were around 2,000 brands of beer on sale in the UK compared to more than 5,000 on sale today.
Men vs Women
Women today feel less social stigma when drinking beer and are now much more likely to experiment with different brands than their male counterparts. While the frequency of men drinking beer three times a week is relatively stable at 16%, the number of women drinking it three times a week is slowly rising, from 2.4% in 2009 to 2.7% today.
But the UK now finds itself closing in on the 50% tipping-point where one drinks just as often at home as down the local. In the 1960s the average age of when drink consumption shifted to the home was 52 years-old; this has declined sharply to 23 years-of-age in 2010, driven by a stark improvement in home entertainment options and changes in alcohol pricing.
But beer volumes in the UK off-trade have fallen 5% in volume and 3% in value over the last three months.
To see the Let There Be Beer advert and contribute to the world’s biggest encyclopaedia of beer please visit www.facebook.com/lettherebebeer and follow www.twitter.com/lettherebebeer.
British beer facts:
• Stout is more popular in London than anywhere else in the UK which probably harks back to its introduction to British shores in 1700s London.
• Britain took a while to fall in love with lager, but now it commands three quarters of the beer market.
• Statistics released in conjunction with the campaign launch found, for example, that at university the student drinks 1.8 times per week but what they choose is changing. There’s been a 58% rise in union bars requesting cask lager and students are also picking world lagers, which are up by 17%.
• Tastes change as our tastebuds mature through life. Thus younger drinkers tend to opt for standard lagers and lighter tastes. As our appetite for flavour develops, drinkers seek out beers with more taste which is why we start to favour higher ABV beers and ales as we get older. Drinkers between 25 and 35 tend to be the most experimental with new flavours before settling into a favourite brand as they get older. Peak drinking age has been established at 32 with 42% of 32 year-olds having a drink a week versus the UK national average of 32%.
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